V. V. Aku

Leah Koopman finds herself waking up after celebrating her 18th birthday to the most horrible dream. She remembers a fire, an explosion, her best friend being incinerated along with a lot of others. Surely this can't be true, but then she looks down and finds herself covered in soot and realizes that her nightmare is real. She takes off running, suddenly realizing that everything has changed. She notices that she can now see things she that couldn't see before. All of her senses are heightened. She has strength and speed that she can't explain. She also has an insatiable thirst burning her throat, and finds herself craving human blood. Not knowing who to trust, Leah runs, and when a group of beautiful immortals try to help her, she doesn't quite trust them, but then finds herself being chased by something even more dangerous, the Brotherhood, who want nothing more than to see her dead. As she travels with her new immortal friends, she finds herself immediately drawn to Max Machiavelli. He is absolutely beautiful and Leah can't stay away from him. Max feels the same way about Leah. She joins his coven in Amsterdam and learns much about her family and her past. Leah desperately wants to find a way to avoid continuing to kill humans to survive. After being captured, she meets, Adam, a human and a member of the Brotherhood, who also has the same vision. Can they work together and come to an agreement between the immortals and the brotherhood, or will everyone end up dead in the process?

This was an interesting book. The immortals in the story don't claim to be vampires, but they do live off human blood, though they don't share all the common traits with your typical vampire. This was a different and interesting concept. Leah is very powerful, and destined to be the leader to bring the different covens together again. She is also very opposed to the killing of humans. Being raised as a human for the first 18 years of her life, she has an aversion to the slaughter of humans, even if only done for survival. It was kind of hard to get a grasp on exactly what was going on in the beginning of the book, but once it was made clearer what was happening, the story progressed at a fast pace. Max and Leah are mates, and there is quite a bit of hot romance between them. Max loves Leah dearly and would do anything for her. He is quite the hottie himself. Adam, the human, was a very nice guy and helped Leah out a lot. She cared about him a great deal. Several other members of the different covens were also interesting to get to know. The setting and locations in the story were all beautiful, and the progression of the story is interesting and keeps your attention. If you like vampire and immortal stories, or are looking for a fresh perspective on the vampire scene, then The Fire of Dawn might be something you would enjoy checking out.… (more)